After a bit of confusion surrounding the launch and release of the Lumia 920 with Pentaband support, Nokia clarified that their website had accidentally posted their flagship Windows Phone 8 smartphone as pentaband capable. Except, it seems that Nokia may have actually been right the first time around the Rogers release of the Lumia 920 to our friends up North confirmed that not only does the Lumia 920 have WCDA 1700/2100MHz, it runs on Wind, an AWS Canadian carrier.

If this pans out, not only could you grab an unlocked variant from Rogers, but we’re hopeful that Nokia was in fact mistaken all around and that the Lumia 920 will come pentaband, at least internationally. Either way, the opportunity to run a Lumia 920 on T-Mobile unlocked with AWS excites us greatly. There’s always the opportunity to run the Lumia 920 inside refarmed areas of T-Mobile’s network when it launches, but AWS is so widespread that we’d love to have the best of both worlds. If these signs are any indicator, we are getting exactly that.

About David Beren

David is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TmoNews.com. He considers himself a Jedi Knight, capable of leaping tall buildings in a single bound and a connoisseur of fine cell phones. He has been involved in the wireless industry since 2003 and has been known to swap out phones far too many times in any given year. Should you wish to contact him, you can do so: david@tmonews.com.

Pretty sweet, even tho I love Android and prefer htc 8X this is definitely good news!

Guest

oooooo crossing fingers. I would love to see people kick that at&t exclusive in the ass. “Check out this 920 on tmo. :)

aw

awesome. if its with ATT, then hopefully will be easy to unlock

William Miller

OMG….I have to pray to the Phone gods…” ohh phone gods hear my prayer…please let this be true for all us tmobaphiles!!! May the phone be with you …( response) and also with you!!

acerbic

Unfortunately it’s still quite possible that that the Rogers unlocked pentaband 920s are prerelease models and the final retail version will be locked and have AWS 1700 disabled in firmware.

CO_yeti

I doubt it, there is still a very small percentage of consumers that will buy these phones new and then transfer to a new network. Not worth the trouble for Nokia… And even if that is the case it proves that the 920 is ABLE to access AWS 1700 networks. The Rogers or ATT verison might have the bands turned off eventually, but the unlocked european version will not have any bands turned off, they never do.
Bottom line, if you are want a Lumia 920 on Tmo USA and are willing to put in the leg work, it is possible. I’ll wait until it and the 8X is out to make my decision.

acerbic

Wouldn’t you need the American version for any chance to use LTE when T-Mo gets it?

eanfoso

Doubt it, but I know there are two different versions, according to gsm arena

CO_yeti

Good question. Honestly, I’m not expecting LTE in my area for quite some time so I haven’t researched it. Are any phones in Tmo’s current lineup future LTE certified?

acerbic

Galaxy Note 2 seems to be.

acerbic

…although this makes it look a little more promising still: Best Buy Canada openly specs it as pentaband 3G.

it uses the MSM8960 so it has World Mode – LTE FDD/TDD CAT3, SVLTE-DB, TD-SCDMA, Rel9 DC-HSPA+, GSM/GPRS/EDGE, EGAL, 1Ã— Adv., 1Ã— EV-DO Rev. A/B .. whether the device you hold in your hand can out of the box work with these modes depends on the firmware on it, but with the right radio firmware, all these modes are accessible

acerbic

Is WP8 hackable so that firmware disabled frequencies could possibly be enabled?

archerian

I doubt it will be easy, the WP modding community isn’t as widespread as Android. The best option I see would be to get International firmwares to work on local devices, rather than “enabling” the locked bands on existing firmware. There are at least two versions of the device, compatibility needs to be checked.

PiCASSiMO

Now let’s hope the unlocked pricing from Rogers or AT&T is in-line… as the $350 Nexus 4 is very tempting value replacement for my G2.

Guest

Good news is that my family up in Toronto can pick this up for me and allow me to use it in Chicago.

TheCudder

“Support for LTE networks may have been disabled on your device depending on your country or service provider.” This worries me.

ceegii63

meaning the International Unlocked version should have all LTE radios enabled

This means I can buy the phone outright from Rogers and continue using my Koodo Micro SIM card! :D :)

Cmonspike

Warning, “Internet Tethering” will NOT work on a carrier other than Rogers. They have locked this up in the firmware and only Rogers SIM cards are allowed this option. Secondly, you may have problems with MMS. I know TELUS does NOT work, Bell is OK, Have no word on Kudos, but its on the TELUS network, so you may still have issues. I had the phone in my hand at Rogers store and did not buy it because of these two issues which are crucial to me.

ceegii63

SON OF A BITCH thats why they havent taken the AWS Specs off the Asian Unlocked version site even after apologizing that it was an error

acerbic

Whatever is going on with Rogers, AT$T is never going to sell anything unlocked. Isn’t it funny that in the supposedly freest and most capitalist society in the world, to get the gadget you want you must “smuggle” it from Canada…?

Fish

Still won’t buy because Nokia is being exclusive. When they start releasing their phones on all networks then we can talk. Otherwise, they won’t be receiving my help to get out of the hole they’re in.

Jim P

I concur 100%. Given the daunting challenge they have of eking out market share against Apple, Samsung and other Android devices, and BlackBerry, which will finally be releasing current generation competitive devices shortly, it boggles my mind that Nokia is limiting its distribution to AT&T’s crappy network. A recipe for failure.

Olivier Boss

You understand that Nokia has nothing to do with this (exclusivity/restriction). It’s the entire fault/GREED of the US wireless carriers (probably mostly AT&T in this case).
Nokia phones (e.g. Lumia 900, 920) are available on ANY network in the world ouside the USA (in fact, they have nothing to do with network particularities – world networks are all GSM, with SIM card, with optimized frequency-sharing between all carriers). Any world standard (GSM, SIM card) network will work with Nokia phones.
Only in the US (and possibly Canada) wireless carriers use their own technology for their network (e.g. non-GSM or GSM with different frequencies than the whole world).
This way US customers MUST get a phone sold/$approved$ by their carrier. T-Mobile and AT&T do this to some extend (they use GSM, SIM card, but non-standard frequencies) – but most high-end International/world (i.e. GSM) phones are at least quadband and can work on T-Mobile and AT&T networks.
The worst offenders are the other US carriers, Verizon and Sprint (they’re all local only, restricted to the US).

Do u have any idea if I will be able to use this phone on T-Mobile USA. Because I do not think AT&T will provide the unlock code for it just like they did not provide the unlock code for the Lumia 900 until after 6 months of it getting released. I understand it is sold off-contract but it is still locked to At&T. Can anybody clarify this for me.

21stNow

If it is like past exclusive phones (like the Lumia 900), you’re right. You wouldn’t be able to get the unlock code from AT&T for six months, even if you purchase it at the no-commitment price. For the Lumia 900, the unlock code was not even available from third parties. I advise you to buy the phone unlocked from elsewhere instead of trying to get an AT&T version to use on T-Mobile.

Jared M

I just spoke with a ATT rep who claims the unlock will be given immediately for the 920 when purchased off-contract. have a screenshot of the conversation.

Anne Droyde

I just got my Galaxy Note 2, and Ivm so happy! There’s nothing else on this Site that I care about, so bye bye David. Thanks for everything.

William C Bonner

Nokia just handed out several thousand of these phones to developers at the Microsoft Build Developers Conference. Do you know if the phones handed out would work at full speed on the T-Mobille network?

I’m still unnder contract for another 6 months, but might be interested in buying a nnew phone if I knew it would support my network of choice.

Fred Beiderbecke

I got one of the phones at build. So far, I have seen 3g with brief flashes of H+. Nice phone.

shawndh

This news just made my day! I hope it’s correct because this is the phone I want and am willing to wait for. I can finally ditch my long love/hate relationship with HTC and Android and go back to Nokia and Windows in the same device. 1700 AWS, please!!!

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